Bucs Prepare for Impending Riots

The Pittsburgh Pirates returned home today amidst a bevvy of rumors, as political support for the team continues to wane. Creditable sources report that the normally placid Pirate fans have finally had enough, and plan a full scale revolt this weekend. One recurring rumor is that a public demonstration of dissatisfaction will occur during the third inning of Saturday's game against Washington. The demonstration will culminate with all fans (expected crowd of 6,000) leaving their seats in the 3rd inning in mock protest, or at least one mass orchestrated potty break.

Other intelligence suggests more violent responses from the angry Pirate faithful, and experts fear that WMA (Weapons of Mass Annoyance) are being stockpiled. One report claims that Giant Eagle Supermarkets saw a 25% spike in toilet paper sold during recent weeks, and an 18% surge in egg sales during the same time frame. (Tar and feather sales figures were not available at press time.)

During a recent raid on a home in Dormont, local police discovered three cases of silly string, a "Voodoo for Dummies" manual, and several Jason Bay baseball cards, all de-faced with drawn on mustaches or rabbit ears.


Hate crime evidence found in Dormont

City and team officials have yet to unveil their security plan, but both parties are visibly concerned for the threat. "Yeah, they're pissed off, we get that," said a Pirate executive who asked to be unnamed, "but it's not like we haven't had crappy teams before. I just don't understand the violence now. 2005 was a really lousy year, why didn't they revolt then." The Pirates have also stated that a preemptive strike against the dissatisfied fans is a likelihood. "We're going to do our best to block them out, basically screen them at the box office. If they want to boo and be unhappy, then we don't want them here. The last thing any team needs is a crowd of people voicing their opinions. If they are true Pirate fans, then they should know that their opinions do not matter."

City Police restrict angry fans from PNC Park ticket offices on Thursday.

When asked if this tactic was prudent in light of the Buccos' already dismal ticket sales, the team official responded with optimism. "that's the best part," he added, "now that we get the luxury tax, we don't need ticket sales anymore, so we can be very selective on who we let in. In fact, we are currently kicking around plans to someday make all home games off limits to the public. Can you imagine what we'll save by laying off all the scoreboard operators and hot dog vendors?"

Furious season ticket holders gathered to vent their rage on Pirate ownership

No comments were available from the Mayor's office, although heightened police presence is visible in nearly every Pittsburgh borough. "Protection for the team is our number 1 goal," said Assistant Police Chief Hugh Jass. "Things got a bit dicey at the airport this morning, but we took care of business." City officials have also denied that they are "surging" forces by bringing in additional troopers from neighboring communities, Monroeville and Plum Township.

Local police restore order at Pittsburgh International Airport as team returns home

Ironically, the unrest coincides with the arrival of the most highly anticipated give away in Pirates' merchandising history: the Bob Walk Bobble Head Doll. Slews of theories have arisen regarding the relationship of the two events. Some theorists say that the fans' displeasure is truly not with the team's horrific performance, but with the potential lack of availability of a priceless keepsake. Others, who are more prone to conspiracy type theories, believe that this is a ploy by the Nutting family to gain control of the bobble head inventory, and then sell them through commercial channels for personal profit. Leading experts state that on line auction houses like EBay are already fetching bids over $1.75 per doll.

Regardless of which theory prevails, the Walk family is considerably irritated by the timing of the unrest. "This shines a bad light on an otherwise Hall of Fame caliber career," said Walk's spokesman, "105 career wins, and an e.r.a. of just over 4, but they are going to overshadow these incredible feats with this silly protest."

Bob Walk still can't get any love

Be The GM For a Day

Since the last couple posts have inspired some insightful and passionate replies, I am now challenging my readers to put their money where their fingers are. Be the GM for a day. Ok, this isn't actually a bona fide contest that the Bucs are running,...like usual, they haven't recalled my calls.

This will be our little thing. Submit your comments with what you would do to turn this ship around. Be honest, yet realistic. "Get A-Rod", probably isn't doable. (actually, I'm not sure, the Yankees don't return my calls either.)

But anyway, give it a shot. Maybe I'll bundle them up and send them off to David Littlebudget. I'm certain that he hasn't heard enough suggestions over the last six seasons.

Finally, kudos to the reader that suggested the return of the great David Lapoint, - now that is Bucco Knowledge 101. Although Snax is not available, we do have calls into Stosh Belinda and Enrique Romo. Again, no calls have been returned.



Dave LaPoint is not looking to return to Bucs any time soon.

Doctor, It Hurts

The 2007 Pittsburgh Pirate season is slowly (and painfully) becoming the baseball equivalent of a nasty STD. You rarely think about it with anything less than shame and regret, and God, does it hurt! The 'Burgh Bombers have certainly had their fair share of painful seasons over let's say, the last fifteen fucking years, but I never, and I repeat, NEVER, remember this level of frustration.

Seemingly, today's 10th inning loss against the Angels is a perfect snapshot for this woeful season. So close yet so far away, as skipper Jim Tracy would have you believe. But is that really the case? Are we really that close? Sure, two of the last three losses on their current losing streak were in extra innings. Sure, a few more games were lost with a couple bad breaks, and yes, the bad timing that always seems to accompany the bad breaks, and yes, the one or two pitches that we wish we could have had back, blah, blah, fucking, blah. We've heard this story from Mr. Tracy time and time again. We're just this close to being great. Not just good, but great! Honestly, just how in the fuck can a 5th place team be "this close" to being great???

It's a lie. It's a bad team. I don't deny it anymore. Yeah, we lost a couple games in extra frames, but honestly, was there any notion in anyone's mind that the Angels weren't going to win those games? Not mine. We lost 5 outa 6 games against two quality teams, and honestly, it wasn't close, regardless of what the scoreboard or Jim Tracy says. We were outclassed by better teams, period. These were great teams, Mr. Tracy, and we were not that close to these teams. Not at all.

I don't know what you call it, but these guys don't have it. Call it heart, I guess (for the record, I actually hate using that word in this context). Whatever you want to call it, we ain't got it. There is absolutely no clutch hitting, the fundamentals in the field and on the base paths are pathetic, and we can't ever get the outs when we need them. So, let's see, I just listed the 4 aspects of the game: hitting, pitching, base running, and fielding, and we basically suck at all areas. That is really disgraceful. Honestly, that is a coaching level thing, and an organizational thing.

This is a team of mediocre players with sloppy fundamentals, and I'm really not sure if there is a quick fix. In April, we were all excited about the meat of this line up: Freddy Sanchez, Jason Bay, and Adam LaRoche. If that is our "meat", then this team is that tofu burger that only skinny chicks order at one of those new age eateries. These guys just don't get it done,...yeah, even Freddy. Unfortunately, it's no better on the pitching side of the house. We only seem to have realistic win potential with two of our five starters, and the bullpen is probably the saddest story of all. ESPN rated our BP as best in the NL in 2006, now it's a sloppy parade of dudes who frankly aren't fooling anyone. And what is the answer to that? Ok, let's keep 8 relievers! 8 fucking relievers. That's our way of saying "I am using dog shit to put out this fire. It doesn't really work, so I better keep more dog shit on hand."

So what can we do? I'm not sure where the answers are going to come from, and when they will come. GM Littlefield and the Brass keep telling us that we are right around the corner. Around the corner from where, Fuckedtown? Since I am fluent in Shittalk, I can translate these recent comments for you..."Yeah, we suck, and these guys are, in fact, dogs. But they don't cost much, so there is really no need for the yearly Bucco fire sale this July. Yeah, they're right around the corner, alright."

The reality is now sinking in. I have only one answer tonight, - beer...yes, lots and lots of beer.

Oops, We Did it Again

Skipper Jim Tracy ponders when and if the Bucs will score again

Baseball is a pretty simple sport. The rules are clearly defined, in order to win a ball game, you must score more runs than your opponent. In order to outscore your opponent, you must first score runs,...hopefully lots of runs.

This concept has eluded our boys for most of the last decade and a half. Actually, around 54% of the time. After last night's second consecutive shutout in Seattle, you really must ask yourself what is the problem with these guys.

This was my deepest, darkest fear entering this road trip. If the Bucs pull another one of their legendary post-Leyland era zombie acts, let's say like only scoring a run or two during a 5 game skid, they will be screwed. They stand the potential to come home as many as 13 games under .500, and at that point, who really gives a fuck anymore.

The Steelers are a few weeks out of training camp, and I for one will find it hard to stomach the interest for yet another "September Surge", where we start beating other irrelevant teams and push our win total up to a whopping 75, good enough for fourth place in arguably the worst division in baseball. Finishing ahead of Cincy and the Cubbies just ain't doing it for me anymore. The September Surge is also when you start hearing about our potential, and all the brilliant what-if questions like "what if we weren't as bad in one run games" or "what if we didn't lose every game in which Jason Bay wore red boxers".

Am I projecting anger? Good, because I'm just a few more blocks away from the neighborhood I like to call Rage. Not sure what comes after rage, but I'm certain my beloved Bucs will help me discover it.

Why Yes, I am a Big Fat Liar

"Being a Pirate fan, is like being married to a recovering crack addict. Every time you think they're getting it straight, they relapse and leave you feeling more hopeless than the day before." - Brian Watterson

Ok, so well, how about we just forget about my last post? Last night the Bucs brazenly reminded me why I'm an amateur blogger and not a professional sports writer, and certainly not a handicapper. Just one night removed from turning in one of their most impressive games of the year, they totally fucking stink up the joint by getting BLANKED BY ONE OF THE WORST PITCHERS IN BASEBALL! This guy, Jeff freaking Weaver had an era of over 11! That's not even possible in slow pitch softball. And we get shut out on four frigging hits. Inexcusable. I mean, totally frigging inexcusable. Nothing more to write tonight, I'm really ashamed right now. We better fucking win tonight.

Gorzilla Attacks!!!

The placid life on the Pacific coast was once again traumatically interrupted by the emergence of another monster of reckless and ruthless nature. Godzilla returns? No, not Godzilla - GOR-zilla!

Tom Gorzenally landed in Seattle last night and led the Bucs to a big victory in the opening game of what could be the most crucial road trip on the season. Gorzo showed the world, or at least the handful that stay up to catch Pacific Time Zone programming, why he is a probable all-star. The young lefty gave a strong 7 innings, walking none, and yielding only 2 earned runs to pace the Buccos in a 5-3 victory. Oh, what about my "wall" theory (see post # 3)? Gorzo The Great pulled a Randy Johnson on me and hurled 123 strong pitches. I'll re-state, 123 pitches!

The Bucs also got some quality bullpen work out of basically every healthy reliever not currently under suspension. The bats were also responsive, especially that of a Senor Sanchez who stroked a few timely hits. How cool would it be for Freddy to get hot right now?

Most importantly, the Bucs showed a little more of what they have been displaying lately...fortitude. Actually buckling down and finishing out a game that they should win. No mental breakdowns in the 9th. No big strikeout with bases loaded and the score tied. Here's a new concept...insurance runs. We got a few tack-ons last night, and guess what? We needed them.

Last night's win was as big as any on this season. The Bucs entered the brutal Seattle/Anaheim road swing at 9 games under .500, but still showing serious desire to get back over the hump. Anything less than 3 and 3 is going to really dampen the chances for recovery. Let's face it, regardless of what the Brass says about the insignificance of "The Streak", 82 is the single biggest number in the Pirates organization. Losing 4 or 5 games on this west coast trip is going to all but kill that chance for this year.

We got Snell and Gorzo once more on this swing, and it appears that the hitters are really settling in, so the chances are decent for a .500 trip or better.

Let's hope we keep this going...time for an afternoon beer. What, can't celebrate??

Announcing our new mascot...

And the winner of our mascot poll is...(drum roll) ENKI! Yep, the lovable fur ball pictured above bested JT3 and Chico J Cat in the on-line balloting, garnering 42% of the total vote! Although Enki was unavailable for comment, her handler, Korina Myzee, thanked us and vowed to help Enki honor the obligations of the position. "She's not really a sports kinda dog, but she is really cute in photos," said Myzee, of the Haverford area. "I'm sure she will be great with some of the upcoming events." "What exactly does a Blog mascot really do, anyway?" she asked later.

Myzee also added that her camera friendly canine may be featured in an opcoming episode of 'House'. "The idea is that this little dog helps Dr. House cure an old man of pancreatic cancer. I don't want to oversell her performance, but let's just say that I cried."

The poll was not without it's share of controversy, however. Two animals were disqualified from the event due to obvious ballot stuffing. Ironically, the two animals were owned by Kayla Myzee, sister of Korina. "I think this sucks," the eldest Myzee told a slew of local reporters, "and guess what, she can forget about me watching that stupid House episode."

"It's just sad," the raven haired Korina responded, "but she'll get over it."

Another Brick in The Wall

What a nice Sunday! Thank you, Bucs! We finished off the ChiSox 8-7, taking 2 outa 3 in the series, and 4 outa 6 on the home stand. Happy days are here again! Ok, let's ground ourselves, right? We fly to the Left Coast tomorrow.

Today's win was nice, although it involved a recurring event on this young season. With much cagrin, I am going to name this event "The Wall". Is it just me, or does it seem that mostly every night one of our fine young gun starting pitchers hits the wall. Just cruising along, 3 inning, 4 innings, maybe 5 innings, then wham! The wall. Gorzo, our alleged all-star, seems to do it every outing. Cruises along, only yielding a run thru 5 or 6 six innings, then he opens batting pratice. He will then leave with a shitty box score to show for it. The wall.

Or maybe it should just be called "The Big Inning". An inning where the starter temporarily departs from an otherwise masterful game to yield a bunch of runs, crushing his stats and greatly reducing the chances of victory. Remember, these aren't the 1927 Yankees. 5 runs are tough for us to muster.

For Zach Duke, today it was the 4th inning. After smoking thru the first 3 frames on 29 pitches and no runs, Duke then got his usual serving of humilation in the 4th. 5 runs. I think 6 out of 7 batters got hits at one point, with the other one getting an RBI sac fly. I'm not sure what word best fits that line, but "disturbing" comes to mind. Somehow, by the graces of the baseball gods, Duke was able to muster some composure and finish out the next two innings strong as the batters got us some suprising late runs. He didn't get the win, and guess what, he didn't deserve it. Guess what else he doesn't deserve...a spot on this roster.

Seriously, what is up with Zach Duke? The guy is lousy. He has actually taken a bigger step backwards this year than he did last year. He's not even a shell of the hot shot rookie that went 8-2 in 2005. Not even close. Is he just another fish in our pond of below average players that the Top Brass still regard as "potential"? Is this just more denial? Maybe I'm harsh, maybe we should examine stats. Here's his era line from 2005 to 2007: 1.81, 4.47, 5.68. That excalation is great for a mutual fund, but not for a starting pitcher.

Somehow, Duke has lost the ability to get guys out. I mean anybody,...lefties, righties, switch hitters, even amputees are smoking him. Batters are hitting nearly .350 against him this year and he's averaging less than two 2 strikeouts a game. Bucco fans, he's not getting better, no matter what he or Jim Tracy would want us to believe. He's still on his rookie contract, so he can still be sent back to the minors. We need to get over the shame of demoting the opening day starter, and just send him down. If anything, he can work out these demons and start winning games again.

But, you know what? This is Father's Day, and baseball is a father kinda sport. We won today, and all is good. We can worry about our pitching tomorrow. Time to open the beer...

Wonka Land

Remember when I said we were doing ok with the ChiSox? Ok, well, we got a good old Pirate-eque ass-smack tonight, 6-1. We pitched this guy by the name of John Van Benschoten, who did ok, before the bullpen opened up the flood gates. Now, if you never heard of Van Benschoten before, allow me to introduce him. He's another one of these high first round draft picks that's probably better suited to be working at Home Depot rather than pitching in the Bigs. For the record, we have like 5 of these guys down on the farm. We could actually staff the entire lumber section at the Monroeville Home Depot with these guys.

Of course, the Bucco Top Brass would rather keep these guys at Indianapolis, living and working in happy bliss like Oompa Loompas in Wonka Land. Bottom line, when you only got a handful of fans, you can't piss them off by telling them that all the top recruits should be selling drywall, and wearing a lower back support. So we keep these guys, and hopefully expect them to blossom into aces, after they fully recover from the assortment of major arm surgeries that they have all had. Honestly, these guys have more collective ailments than a full season of House.

Then, when they are like 27, and have spent several years in Wonka Land, the Brass runs an IO campaign (military lingo for information operations) on one of these stiffs, convincing Pirateland that he's a hot prospect. (NOTE: hot prospects are not in their late 20's with minor league era's in the mid to high 4's. Baseball has more fitting titles for those guys: middle reliever, number 5 starter, or "bum".)

Then they call him up, and he usually gets hammered pretty damn good. Generally, these guys will have a 6+ era and a one way bus ticket back to Indianapolis within a month. Let's wait and see on Van Ben. Maybe I'll be wrong.

Well, I think it's time to start opening beer cans. Until we stink again...

Opening Day

Ok, well it's not opening day. It's actually early June and the Buccos are 67 games into their schedule. But it's blog opening day, ok, so release the doves.

As a Pirate fan, one must understand frustration, like 15 losing seasons of frustration. Frustration of that magnitude can be handled in many ways, but since I am not prone to hostility and my insurance won't cover therapy, I decided that writing was the best way to find release. Hence the blog. Guess I could have drank more, also.

Since I didn't start this in April, I'm going to need to catch us all up. The Bucs are now 29 and 38, languishing somewhere around 4th place in the NL "Sinful" division (NL Central). The season started out with lots of hopes and promises, like a 3-0 start. It was like, wow, when were we last 3-0...were we ever 3-0??? But, then, BANG! Our good friend, Mr. Reality came home from a long day, slammed the front door, kicked the dog, and started backhanding every living thing in his path. The height of our misery, thus far (the season is still young) was last weekend when the Yanks kicked the living crap out of us over three hard days. I swear, the Yanks had a few innings that took us at least an hour to get 3 outs.

So hope sprang eternal, but the Bucs shot it the middle finger, and decided that fourth place is more of their "safe zone". Is that surprising???

It's glorious interleague time now, and that usually means bad news for us, but we got the ChiSox this weekend, and we are actually doing pretty good. For the record, we also took 2 outa 3 from the Rangers this week, but they really suck, so it's not really worth reporting. The one actual noteworthy factoid was the third game, in which we got stymied by this bush leaguer named Loe. This guy's era was as bloated as a Jenny Craig candidate after a night at Old Country Buffet. Somewhere around 7.60, I believe. Of course, the Buccos, the good ole' frigging Lumber Company, can make anyone look like Koufax, and we did. I think he gave us like 3 hits thru 8 innings. I think at one point he even threw that pitch that only worked in whiffle ball...and we swung and missed.

And that's kinda the story of this season. Bad delivery, failed expectations, tons of untimely hitting, fielding gaffs, bullpen letdowns, etc., etc., typical Pirate crap. It's a lengthy list of screw ups this year. No one guy gets the credit for our lofty .433 win percentage, this is a true team effort.

So write and tell me what you think about our boys. It's a long season, and I want to read your thoughts and ideas. Hell, maybe even the Bucco top brass will pay some attention (doubtful). My buddy, Tony, will probably chime in from time to time, and share his miserable views without my sugar coat. (hint: he ain't gonna be too kind on guys like A Laroche.)

Until I write again...right now, there is probably some Pirate striking out, somewhere.